People are always looking for free VPN apps to bypass filters and access blocked the website. Currently, there are tons of free VPN tools available on the internet that claims to hide your online identity. Using Free Virtual Private Network can cost you a lot because a recent dozen facts have been shown.
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Dark Side of Free VPNs: Things You Must Know
If you look around we can find that the use of VPN services are on the rise these VPN apps can help users access remote networks with more security. There are dozens of VPN apps available for torrenting purposes and even used for wrong uses.
In recent few months, the VPN apps have gained widespread usage in bypassing country’s restrictions to access blocked services. VPN is among the best security tools a web surfer can have. This VPN can encrypt all incoming and outgoing traffic making your entirely anonymous.
However, there are people always look for free virtual private network apps to bypass website restrictions. There are tons of free VPN tools available on the internet that claims to hide your online identity. The free ones can actually cost you a lot Here is How?
So, is Free VPNs Safe To Use?
Recently researches from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) have gathered data from 283 different Android VPN apps. They found almost 75% of VPN apps use third-party tracking libraries so they can’t be trusted.
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82% of the apps out of 283 required access user accounts and text message that is not necessary at all for VPN app. The study also shows more than 38% of VPN apps come with malware or spyware that can trap innocent peoples without awareness.
The study declared “18% of the VPN apps implement tunneling protocols without encryption despite promising online anonymity and security to their users. In fact, approximately 84% and 66% of the analyzed VPN apps do not tunnel IPv6 and DNS traffic through the tunnel interface respectively due to lack of IPv6 support, misconfigurations or developer-induced errors.”
So, What does the Free VPNs do?
It is common hearing that “Nothing comes free, even free things cost you, your information”. Here is how these apps are hurting your privacy:
1. Selling Your Data
If you are using VPN apps for while you might be well aware to fact that few of the VPN service providers come with strict no logging policy. The free VPN apps don’t have any log-policy so they can keep tracks of usage. These free VPN providers can collect browsing data. After receiving data and sell it to advertisers.
2. Malware
Free VPN apps can also raise some serious security threat and free VPN apps come with malware that is configured to steal sensitive information from your smartphone. Not just that there are free VPN apps which can encrypt your data as evident and ask for ransom to unlock your personal data.
3. Stealing of Bandwidth
Israel based Hola was found stealing bandwidth from users. Hola was also found reselling stolen bandwidth to its sister company known as Luminati. These things are familiar with Free VPNs and can steal bandwidth to resell it to other organization.
4. Browser Hijacking
These free VPNs can also get full control over internet traffic. They can redirect your browser to the website without your permissions. The latest study of CSIRO says that popular VPN service provider, HotSpot redirects users traffic to alibaba.com and ebay.com to generate affiliate commisions.
So, which VPNs are safe to use?
Well, not every free VPN is bad there are few that are entirely safe and don’t require personal user information permission. If you can afford you should always go for premium VPN services available out there. These premium services provide free trial and don’t keep track of users activity and obtain users information.
